Comments by drberticus

Lisa Remorenko's ignorance of sled dog racing is staggering, and clearly displays a total lack of exposure to the sport; it reads like she pulled her sources directly from PETA's propaganda file. This type of shoddy, biased, disinformation has no place in the Santa Barbara Independent.

These racers love their dogs like children and take care of them accordingly, and for Ms. Remorenko to ascribe motives of greed and avarice to them is completely preposterous and unsupported.

Where's your support for conjecture like this: "Today's participants, many of whom are not indigenous Alaskans, are motivated by the cash prize and some will do anything to attain it." Nothing to back it up; just the ignorant fantasy of the author.

What a ridiculous and irresponsible article. If someone had spent ONE SECOND on the Iditarod site, they would have read:

"Iditarod dogs have some of the most intensive health checkups in the animal athletic world. Mandatory pre-race evaluations commence in the early part of February, which include blood testing and ECG recordings. All dogs are permanently identified with a microchip implant as part of the screening process. (Testing and microchip implants are provided for the mushers at no charge to them). Each dog's microchip number is scanned before starting the race, to verify their eligibility."

"In addition to the extensive pre-race testing, every dog is required to have veterinary physical exam within fourteen days of the race start, and all vaccinations must be current. Last but not least, each must be dewormed (medications provided through the ITC) within ten days of beginning their trip to Nome."

This article should be retracted and an apology personally authored by Ms. Lisa Remorenko should be printed, for the mushers and sled dogs that work hard and LOVE to participate in this magnificent event every year.

Thank you Mr. Scoles for standing up against the tyranny of Scam Sanchez!

Anyone who spends significant amounts of time down by the beach near Shoreline *knows* that we need more enforcement in the area for "all the crimes going on by all the drunken bums, illegal aliens and Mexican gangbangers."

It's wonderful to see Mr. Scoles representing the neighborhood with the level of passion he does.

Starshine, you say "We want you to know CPR, We don't know it ourselves."

You then make this painfully clear when you infer that CPR "can re-animate a stopped heart." CPR (a combination of rescue breaths and compressions) simply keeps oxygenated blood flowing to your major organs, it cannot "restart" a heart with no pulse.

Can I suggest that *you* take a CPR class at the local Red Cross chapter before you spread any other inaccuracies? Your ignorance in such a matter is nothing to be proclaiming in a newspaper.

Will you wait until someone needs CPR (and you don't know how to provide it!) to educate yourself in this set of life-prolonging skills?